Shooting with Katen

Last week was the 2008 correct craft catalog shoot on lake butler in Orlando, FL. Year after year the team riders get together to ride behind the boats and then ride in them and pretend like we are having the time of our lives. Usually there is a photographer for action shots (this time Aaron Katen) and then there is Paul Gerding, the guy who takes the shots of the boat cruising. Paul Gerding is great…he’s been taking photo’s of Correct Craft boats going really fast for longer than I have been wakeboarding (half my life now!), but this story is not about Paul Gerding; it’s about Aaron Katen.

After all my years in wakeboarding, I was pretty sure that I knew just about all there was to know about the different ways to take photos from the tube. Some people use a pole to hold the camera up high, some sit forwards/backwards, lay down, others ride super far behind you, and a few have no clue what they are doing and fall off every other trick. So Keith Lidberg was riding, Brandon Thomas was driving, and Scott Byerly and I were spotters. When Keith edged in for his first trick, Aaron suddenly jumped up to his feet and did some sort of crazy dance while holding his camera up in the air. We weren’t sure what we had just witnessed, but it looked similar to a baby learning how to walk for the first time. Twinkle toes and all, Katen continued to jump up to his tippie-toes every time Keith hit the wake, balancing like a trapeze artist while being towed at over 22 miles per hour! The shots Aaron got from that sessions were sick, and while I can’t show them to you myself, you can at least se what Scott, BT and I saw from the boat that day.